


Centuries

by Shaish



Series: Ghosts [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bae, Gen, I'm probably going to cry, M/M, i might cry, thank you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 13:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3250646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaish/pseuds/Shaish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is it. This is the last one. This series is officially complete now. ;-; I think I'm gonna cry.<br/>Thank you, everyone, for reading these and this whole thing (I know some of you did it in like two days <i>what even</i> fjdksl). And thank you to Gina, always, for betaing and making my nonsense make sense omg. fjdkls. <333 (Seriously I think like a movie and that's not always conducive to writing it's ridiculous and I'm stubborn and she puts up with me and my nonsense anyway).<br/>Thank you guys.</p></blockquote>





	Centuries

_Some legends are told_

_Some turn to dust or to gold_

_But you will remember me, remember me for centuries_

_And just one mistake is all it will take_

_We’ll go down in history_

 

“Hey, dad?”

“Yeah, Max?”

“Did you _really_ meet Captain America?”

He pauses where he’s just gotten his work shirt exchanged for a t-shirt, pulling it the rest of the way down and catching the shield emblem in the mirror when he turns.

“I did,” he answers, “When I was a younger kid than you.”

Max crosses his arms like he’s _eighteen_ instead of _twelve_ , and _those_ are going to be fun years. He focuses back on the present.

“I’m _not_ a kid,” Max huffs.

He cracks a smile.

“Ready to go?”

“I just want to know _ooone thiiiing_ ,” Max draws out, and he tries to suppress another smile. Max stares at him for a long moment, brow krinkling in deep concentration. “Superheroes aren’t for adults, so how come _you_ still believe in him so much? _You’re_ an adult.”

He smiles, setting his hands on Max’s shoulders and steering him towards the hall. “Because,” he replies, “When it comes to heroes, belief is everything, and _I believe_ in Captain America. ...And we are _allll kids_ ,” he adds, “I’ve lied to you your whole life,” he says dramatically, “I’ve never been an adult.” Max huffs but he’s smiling.

“ _I’m being raised by a child!_ ” Max calls out dramatically, both of them laughing.

\--

He leaves his dad watching the Peggy Carter film halfway through, has already seen the Iron Man one after it, and wanders the halls of the exhibit, looking at the holograms, old reels in black and white of the _Howling Commandos_ and older footage in bright technicolor of _The Avengers_ brought to life in short loops. Bucky Barnes laughing and smiling with Captain America, The Avengers eating hunched together around a round table. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes playing dodgeball with The Avengers, laughing. Steve Rogers before and after the serum, fluxing between one and the other.

He’s as tall as _Steve Rogers_ was before the serum.

Something darts past his leg and he jumps, eyes dropping down to follow it, and catches a spot of white before the shadow slows around the legs of someone else a few observation stations away, brushing itself up against their leg. He blinks.

It’s a cat.

The person whose ankles the cat is rubbing against bends down, an old baseball cap covering their head, and picks it up, raising and letting it perch around their shoulders, tail looping loose around their neck.

It’s a man, with a blonde ponytail under his hat and a pair of glasses, mostly turned away so Max can’t see much of his face, but then-

Another guy comes strolling over to the first with dark hair, throwing an arm around his shoulders (and _not_ hitting the cat), and pulls their heads in close, baseball caps bumping and they both laugh quietly, leaning into each other.

Max is about to turn away, brush off the fact that there’s a cat in the museum (people carry their pets into stores _all_ _the time_ ), and then they both turn in his direction, the cat lifting its head.

He freezes, eyes going wide.

_It’s-_

They’ve got ponytails, jeans, and jackets, and the blonde is wearing glasses, but _Steve Rogers_ gives him a smile while _Bucky Barnes_ grins, bringing a metal index fingers to his lips. The cat’s ear flicks once, twice, head snapping in another direction and eyes darting to something else.

Max just nods, eyes still wide.

They both nod back before lacing their fingers together and heading towards the exit, light blue eyes in a black, furry face ( _like a light blue pastel or the lights in the new prosthetics by StarkIndustries_ ), darting back to him and watching him until they turn the corner out of the room.

“You okay, Max?”

He jumps out of his daze, head snapping up to find his father standing next to him.

“Yeah. Just...Hey, dad?” he asks.

“Yes?” his father returns, eyes glancing to the large projection of Bucky Barnes’s face, Barnes and Rogers laughing below it in a black and white hologram on loop. Max darts his eyes around briefly before looking back up at him.

“You told me a secret once, about when you were here as a kid,” he says, voice hushed. His father’s eyes drop back down to him.

“I did,” he acknowledges.

“That we talked about earlier.”

His dad nods.

“About you seeing someone here and him _shushing_ you.”

His father nods again.

“And _I’m_ the only person you told?” he asks.

His dad blinks, once, twice (like the cat), and then looks towards the exit that Max had been staring at, eyes slowly drawing back to him after a moment. He nods again, a slow smile coming to his face. “Did you see something cool.” Not a question, and he sounds like he’s Max’s age, hushed and quietly excited.

Max nods slowly, heart not pounding anymore, but it feels like it could start up again any minute.

His eyes dart to where the men were standing, then towards the exit, and finally back up to his dad, standing next to the shifting projection of Steve Rogers before and after the serum, almost as tall as the after serum version.

“Yeah,” he says, voice hushed and excited, too, “ _I did_.”

-

“What’re you smiling about?” Bucky asks. Steve shakes his head a little with a small smile.

“Nothing,” he replies, “Just something like that happened before.”

“What?” Bucky asks, raising a brow as they walk down the sidewalk, sun glinting off of his fingers, “When? When we were at the first exhibit before _Paris?_ ”

Steve hums an agreement, nodding his head. He can practically _feel_ Bucky’s frown.

“You never told me,” he says, a little quieter.

“I tell you most things,” Steve replies, stopping, finally able to let the other people on the sidewalk go around him without flinching.

Bucky stops with him.

“But not everything,” Bucky sighs, turning to fully face him, “I get it, just...No, I know, you wouldn’t have gotten us caught. I’m just being dumb,” he finishes in a slightly petulant mumble. Steve smiles, leaning forward to give his lips a quick kiss.

“It was a while ago,” Steve says, quiet, “And I wasn’t really up for talking.”

“I remember,” Bucky replies, just as quiet, looking at him with his brows drawn together a little. Steve reaches up to smooth them out with a finger and Bucky closes his eyes while he does, letting him. “So,” he says, eyes opening again when Steve’s pulled his hand away, mouth curving into a slow smirk, “ _A fan?_ ” Steve rolls his eyes.

“Buck,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go home.”

Bucky holds his hand out with a grin.

“Steve,” he says, and Steve looks, really looks at him. Bucky smiles, as open as it’s ever going to get and... _happy_. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

Steve feels his own lips pulling up in a smile mirroring Bucky’s, lets the pain settle deep because he can, now, and takes Bucky’s hand, lacing their fingers together and reaching up with the other to rub at Sasha’s neck with a finger, listening to it purr next to his ear.

“I know.”

Bucky tugs him in for another kiss and then they’re walking down the sunlit sidewalk together, hand in hand like all the other couples, blending in with the crowd.

Because they can now.

Because they’re _free_.

 

_Remember me_

_For Centuries_

**Author's Note:**

> This is it. This is the last one. This series is officially complete now. ;-; I think I'm gonna cry.  
> Thank you, everyone, for reading these and this whole thing (I know some of you did it in like two days _what even_ fjdksl). And thank you to Gina, always, for betaing and making my nonsense make sense omg. fjdkls.  <333 (Seriously I think like a movie and that's not always conducive to writing it's ridiculous and I'm stubborn and she puts up with me and my nonsense anyway).  
> Thank you guys.


End file.
